The Day I Grew Up

The Day I Grew Up

June 1973. I am 11 years old and about to leave primary school for secondary school: a whole new world of violence, Shangalang and kung fu stars.

Ian Vaughan - Vaughny - is in his omnipotent pomp: soon to graduate to the position of King of secondary school reserved for him by his brother Dave (see other blog entries).

Below him in the hierarchy: Grant Hopkinson (see earlier chapters again); Martin Mitchell; even the dreaded 'Drac' - Neil Boulton, the first child I ever saw with black teeth. Six foot of spittle and venom.

Most of the girls at primary school were anonymous in gingham and pigtails. Julie Garton however though actually only 11 herself at the time, was sex on legs. There was only one Julie, and she knew it, and she had us all dragging our tongues on the floor.

But how to win Julie...

It was impossible. Vaughny had it stitched up, and anyway she was going to a different school to the rest of us - in only a few weeks' time.

It seemed that only the most dramatic gesture would work.

And so the day came of the school sports day.

Sports days for most normal people were not the anodyne affairs those of us with our own children know so well in the modern era. Imagine the mentality of creating non-competitive sports days - as nowadays - in which everyone wins and no-one loses. I cannot think of a worse lesson in life to teach anyone. Sport teaches children how to take knocks in life, to lose with dignity and to win with sportmanship and good grace. So let's throw beanbags around in a circle to make sure no middle class Jemima or Noah cries - thus saving the school from their irate, equally middle class, equally useless-at-sport parents who themselves had suffered cruel humiliation in their own childish sports days and determined thereafter to create a legal framework where no-one actually ever wins anything in case anyone else gets upset.

Political correctness gone mad.

I'm convinced the world is actually run by people who were crap at sport as children.

So to the day. The usual egg and spoon races come and go. The scores are neck and neck. The last race is the hundred metre sprint. Peter Vince is in it (German, chocolate box house etc); so is Ian Goldthorpe (the only thing about whom I remember is he had a budgie and a clarinet - so loser from he outset)....

...me...

...and Vaughny.

He was a stick-on. Had to be. He was the best at pulling girls, the best at football, the fastest, the hardest and the most glamorous. And he was Born To Be King.

I suppose you can only imagine the events that followed if you are mentally playing the theme from Chariots of Fire in your head.

Ok... that's better...'Dum da da da dum dum...'

A photographer took a picture of it (which I have sadly lost, but which made the papers and everything) and which explains the whole thing. I have borrowed a pair of rubbish spikes from I know not who. I've trained, dieted, prepared my best and am pumped up. I've even made my own gum-shield out of toilet paper.

The gun goes.

I get off to a flyer. Streak past Vincey. Streak past Goldie. I can see my mum at the sidelines cheering me on. I can see Julie Garton watching, willing me to win, I know.

Fifty yards. No Vaughny. Sixty yards. No Vaughny. Eighty yards. No Vaughny.

By this time the crowd (seemingly millions) is in a frenzy. The shock of a lifetime is on the cards. I seem to see Julie's face at all points on the journey, as if she is following me down the track. She is saying to me 'win it for me Paul and I will be your prize', like a kind of Greek goddess in the sky. They say some religions are promised 70 virgins in heaven as a reward for a righteous life. I just wanted this one.

Ninety yards. Still no Vaughny. Julie's panties were a whisker away.

As I breasted the tape, years before Colin Welland ever had the idea in his head, the photograph was to reveal all.

We had been separated out into teams - each given a colour - Goldie yellow, Vincey green, Vaughny red and me blue. There were actually only 4 colours in the 70s anyway. We had to wear these sashes over our shoulders signifying our allegeance (Julie was also a blue, natch).

Vaughny's had become caught up as he faffed around with it at the start, and had held him back.

Of course he never forgave me. But that day I won Julie's heart - over him - and took my first step towards being a man. I felt like bloody Lancelot.

Julie left soon afterwards and went to a nearby secondary school. The only times I ever saw her after that was when we played them at football. I captained our team, and she would come and watch me after her own netball match had finished.

It is now 35 years since I last saw her.